The present application claims priority to Japanese application No P10-277063 filed on Sep. 30, 1999 in Japan.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and a presentation medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and a presentation medium which increase the speed of information processing and reduce the amount of transmitted data by setting sensing areas for sensing other avatars and other objects in an avatar moving in a virtual space in such a way that an outer sensing area includes an inner sensing area, and processing only an avatar and an object sensed by the outer sensing area which are also sensed by the inner sensing area.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional cyberspace service called Habitat(copyright) is known in the field of personal computer (PC) communication service such as NIFTY-Serve(copyright) and CompuServe(copyright) of the U.S. in which a plurality of users connect their PCs to a central host computer through modems and a public telephone-line network to make accesses to the host computer in accordance with a predetermined communication protocol.
Lucas Film of the U.S. started development of the Habitat(copyright) in 1985. After an operation of the Habitat(copyright) by Quantum Link, a U.S. commercial network company, for approximately 3 years, NIFTY-Serve started a Habitat service as Fujitsu Habitat(copyright) in February 1990. In the Habitat(copyright), a parturition of the user which is an object representing the user itself is placed in a virtual city called a Populopolis which is rendered by 2-dimensional graphics, allowing the user to have, among others, a chat with another user. The parturition of the user is referred to as an avatar. More specifically, an avatar is an incarnation of a user which is an object representing the user itself appearing in a virtual environment. The term avatar originates from an Indian myth and refers therein to the incarnation of a Hindu deity. Moreover, in this context, a chat is a real-time conversation based on texts which are displayed on a screen as a result of operations to enter characters via a keyboard. A more detailed description of the Habitat is disclosed in Cyberspace, Michael Benedikt edition, an NTT publication ISBN 4-87188-265-9C0010, first edition of Mar. 20, 1994 (which is a translation of Cyberspace: First Steps, Michael Benedikt, ed. 1991, MIT Press Cambridge, Mass. ISBN 0-262-02327-X), pages 282 to 307.
In a conventional cyberspace system operated in a PC communication service of this type, a row of houses on a street and rooms in each of the houses in the virtual city are rendered by 2-dimensional graphics such that, in order to move an avatar inward or outward with respect to the background of a 2-dimensional graphic, the avatar is merely moved up and down over the background. That is, the display expression is poor for a pseudo experience of a walk or a movement in the virtual space. In addition, since the virtual space where the avatar representing the user itself and another avatar are displayed, is seen from a perspective of a third person, the sense of a pseudo experience is also lost in this respect.
In order to eliminate the shortcomings described above, a function to display the virtual space by 3-dimensional graphics and to allow the user to walk about in the space with a high degree of freedom as seen from the perspective of the avatar is implemented utilizing a 3-dimensional graphic data descriptive language called Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) as disclosed in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/678,340 filed Jul. 11, 1996, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Details of the VRML are described, for example, in Knowing VRML: Browsing and Building Cyberspace, by Mark Pesce and translated by Kohichi Matsuda, Terunao Kamachi, Shoichi Takeuchi, Yasuaki Honda, Junichi Koyomoto, Sadayuki Ishikawa, Ken Miyashita and Kazuhiro Hara, first edition of Mar. 25, 1996, Prentice Hall publication ISBN4-931356-37-0 (which is a translation of VRML: Browsing and Building Cyberspace, by Mark Pesce, 1995 New Readers Publishing ISBN 1-56205-498-8), and in Recent Trends in VRML and CyberPassage, by Kohichi Matsuda and Yasuaki Honda, bit (Kyoritsu publication)/1996, Vol. 28, No. 7, pages 29 to 36, No. 8, pages 57 to 65, No. 9, pages 29 to 36 and No. 10, pages 49 to 58.
In addition, the specifications of Version 2.0 of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (ISO/IEC CD 14772) are available at the following URL: http://www.vrml.org/Specifications/VRML2.0/FINAL/spec/index.html. A Japanese version of the specifications is available at the following URL: http://www.webcity.co.ip/info/andoh/VRML/vrml2.0/spec-ip/index.html.
The most recent version of the VRML, VRML2.0 can be used to describe and express an autonomous behavior of an object in a 3-dimensional virtual space. Thus, in a behavior to walk about in a virtual space displayed by 3-dimensional graphics in a browser for VRML2.0, that is, in a 3-dimensional virtual space as seen from the perspective of the avatar, the user is allowed to have a feeling as if the user itself is actually walking about the 3-dimensional virtual space.
A typical browser for VRML2.0 and software for a shared server are a Community Place(copyright) Browser/Bureau developed as a product by Sony Corporation, the assignee of the present application. Its prototype xcex2 version is available at the following URL: http://vs.sony.co.jp.
When an avatar moves in the virtual space described above, the scenery around the avatar also changes with the movement such that a long time is necessary to process the entire information accompanying the changes in the scenery or, more specifically, to process the information on other avatars and objects. Additionally, difficulty in transmission of all the processed information arises due to the limitation on the amount of data that can be transmitted.
In view of the foregoing, the present invention increases the processing speed and reduces the amount of transmitted data by setting auras (each serving as a sensing area) for an avatar with one of the auras (the outer aura) enclosing the other aura (the inner aura) enclosing the avatar so that only other avatars and objects in the inner aura sensed by the outer aura are to be processed.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus for moving an object located in a 3-dimensional virtual space, the information processing apparatus comprising: recognition means for recognizing another object existing in an outer sensing area used for sensing the other object and set to enclose an inner sensing area set to enclose the object; judgment means for making a judgment as to whether or not the other object recognized by the recognizing means exists in the inner sensing area; and processing means for carrying out predetermined processing on the other object judged by the judgment means to be an object existing in the inner sensing area.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing method for moving an object located in a 3-dimensional virtual space, the information processing method comprising the steps of: a recognition step of recognizing another object existing in an outer sensing area used for sensing the other object and set to enclose an inner sensing area set to enclose the object; a judgment step of making a judgment as to whether or not the other object recognized at the recognizing means exists in the inner sensing area; and a processing step of carrying out predetermined processing on the other object judged at the judgment means to be an object existing in the inner sensing area.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a presentation medium for a presenting a program that can be executed by a computer to drive an information processing apparatus for moving an object located in a 3-dimensional virtual space to carry out processing including: a recognition step of recognizing another object existing in an outer sensing area used for sensing the other object and set to enclose an inner sensing area set to enclose the object; a judgment step of making a judgment as to whether or not the other object recognized at the recognizing means exists in the inner sensing area; and a processing step of carrying out predetermined processing on the other object judged at the judgment means to be an object existing in the inner sensing area.
As a result, according to the present invention, for an object, an inner sensing area (an inner aura) and an outer sensing area (an outer aura) for sensing another object are set with the outer aura enclosing the inner aura which further encloses the object, wherein only if the other object sensed by the outer aura also exists in the inner area, is the processing carried out on the other object. Therefore, in accordance with the present invention, the amount of information reported to the object is reduced and the information is processed in a shorter period of time.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings.